


It's No Secret

by atothej



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Relationship Reveal, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 05:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19761931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atothej/pseuds/atothej
Summary: Bucky is in no way, shape, or form ashamed to be with Clint, and he's going to prove it.





	It's No Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to tumblr as a prompt fill.
> 
>  **Anonymous:** _Kiss prompts: number 8! “In secrecy"_

It takes Bucky a while to catch on, but once he gets the first piece of it, the rest just all falls into place, and what that first piece amounts to is this: Clint Barton does not think highly of himself.

Sure, he’ll brag ‘til the cows come home about anything to do with his skillset–-namely, his archery–-which led to him becoming an agent and now an Avenger, but it’s all just bluster. Most days, Clint’s just trying to work out why anyone would lump him in with a group of superheroes and constantly finding himself wanting. He’s inordinately insecure, lives in a constant state of self-deprecation, and keeps some kind of running tally in his head for good deeds he’s done in an effort to balance out who the hell knows what in his past.

The saddest thing about it all, though, from where Bucky’s standing at least, is that none of this even began to occur to him until after they became A Thing.

In his defense, it was a fairly confusing start to things. Sure, he’d been hanging out with Barton more, from time shared on the range to endless Smash Brothers takedowns, but that first kiss had come out of nowhere, so far as Bucky could tell.

And before they became A Thing, Barton was just Barton, and to Bucky, Barton was something like a cut-out of a man: good and brave and strong and sometimes an asshole, but in a charming way that Bucky appreciated on the whole. But after that first kiss, Barton began to dissolve into _Clint,_ and that’s when Bucky started to catch a glimpse of all the little cracks in the armor, the flaws leaking through that make Clint so achingly human.

But as previously mentioned, putting together the whole puzzle is a process, one that takes Bucky a while to put together enough of to get an idea as to what the bigger picture actually represents.

So between the furtive kisses in empty hallways, and the careful distance always maintained when they’re hanging out in a public part of the Tower, and the alarm Clint sets when he sneaks into Bucky’s room to spend the night to ensure he’s awake before anyone else the next morning to sneak back out, and (very closely related to the last point) the fact that Clint's sneaking involves _crawling through the fucking duct work_ –-between all that, Bucky starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

It’s not that Clint wants to keep this thing between them a secret. (As Bucky had suspected at the beginning, which, again in his defense, Clint had prefaced that first conversation after that first kiss with a sly little _“We don’t have to tell anyone. Just keep it between you and me, you know?”_ ) It’s that he thinks _Bucky_ does, that the only reason Bucky’s giving him the time of day is because no one’s cottoned on to what they’re getting up to behind closed doors–-and quietly at that, so as to not arouse any suspicion. 

Clint thinks Bucky is _ashamed_ of him, of what they’ve unsteadily been building between them and that–-that is _so far_ from the truth because now that Bucky _knows_ Clint, he is so much greater than Bucky ever thought Barton was or could be, so much _better_.

Part of getting to know Clint, though, is quickly picking up on how uncomfortable he gets when it comes to openly discussing _feelings_. So, in deference to that, Bucky has elected to take matters firmly into his own hands and just _show_ Clint that he’s proud to be with him, proud _of him_ , and that he wants the whole damn world to know what a catch he’s got in Clint Barton. 

So the next time Clint sets his silent alarm for ridiculously-early o’clock, Bucky pulls him back under the covers and distracts him with another quick round of canoodling, wresting Clint’s favorite hoodie from him in the process and cleverly stashing it under his bed while unearthing the bottle of lube from where it had rolled off the bed the night before.

When Clint finally manages to duck out, _through the fucking duct work_ , Bucky takes his time getting ready. He gets dressed in the same outfit he wore the day before, rescues Clint’s hoodie from the abyss under the bed and dons it, then carefully fixes his hair by not actually fixing anything, just more artfully mussing it up.

Bucky finally saunters out to the communal kitchen and ignores the rest of the team already assembled for some morning grub while he goes about making two cups of coffee, one very pointedly made with excess everything, just the way Clint likes it best.

When Clint finally ambles in a few minutes later, the post-orgasm sleepiness has edged out the adrenaline rush he seems to get when sneaking about, and Clint looks as out of it as he does most mornings. Bucky ushers him over to a barstool at the island counter by making him follow the caffeine, and once Clint’s settled and distracted by inhaling the coffee steam, he plasters himself along Clint’s back and props his chin up on Clint’s shoulder.

Under him, Clint tenses noticeably, but he doesn’t move to push Bucky away, so he’s taking that as a win.

Reaching forward to nudge Clint’s coffee mug further into the ring of his hands, Bucky presses a kiss into Clint’s temple and says, “Hurry up and drink it already.”

Around them, the rest of the team, usually bustling about doing their own thing because they can never agree on a collective breakfast, have slowed to a near stop to surreptitiously watch them, and Bucky’s close enough he can see the way the subtle attempts at scrutiny are making Clint's hands just barely quake with nerves.

“What’s the rush?” Clint mutters lowly, his tone groggy and gruff and too stilted to be attributed to the roughness of just waking up.

Bucky slides his arms low around Clint’s waist and squeezes his middle reassuringly. “The faster you drink it, the faster you’ll wake up, the faster you’ll be able to fix my hair.”

“Why am I fixing your hair?” Clint asks with honest curiousity even as he slowly sinks back into the circle of Bucky’s hold.

Bucky grins slyly and lets the expression bleed into his voice. “‘Cause you’re the one who messed it up in the first place.”

Off on the sidelines watching the by-play, Tony very suddenly snorts into his mug (which Steve had already switched out for hot chocolate before Bucky even arrived, but Stark’s too out of it to even notice yet) and it’s like a shoddy glass box around them’s been shattered and the rest of the world rushes back in to take their stock.

Next to Tony, Bruce is chuckling into the loose collar of his sweatshirt, but he’s avoiding eye contact, which is a nice way of keeping things from getting too awkward, at least.

Sam doesn’t look up over from where he’s hidden behind the newspaper, but Bucky does hear him mumble out an amused, “Noice.”

Steve, flipping flapjacks over at the stovetop, does look over at them, and his face is too serious for this early in the morning, which means he’s about to be a serious dickhead. He points his spatula over at them and says, all stern-like, “Buck’s got a point. You make the mess, you clean it up.”

There’s a mortified blush crawling up the back of Clint’s neck, and Bucky kisses along the edges of red as Clint splutters incoherently.

From the other side of the kitchen, Natasha clears her throat pointedly, and when they both swivel their heads around to look at her, she doesn’t comment, just looks at them with a proud, warm smile.

Clint’s sputtering cuts off and he curls in over his coffee mug. Dipped close and low as Bucky is because he refuses to let an inch of space take up between their bodies right now, Bucky catches sight of the bashful little grin Clint’s trying to bite away, and he wraps his body around Clint’s that much tighter.


End file.
